Div. 2 South Softball: Shutout win sends Bishop Stang into semifinals

Wednesday

Jun 4, 2014 at 12:01 AM

BROCKTON — The busy schedule is suiting Bishop Stang fine.

GREG SULLIVAN

BROCKTON — The busy schedule is suiting Bishop Stang fine.

Playing for the second time in as many days, the Spartans got a neat one-hitter from Hannah Carvalho in beating second-seeded Cardinal Spellman 2-0 in the Div. 2 South softball quarterfinals on Tuesday afternoon at Spellman's Potvin Field.

The seventh-seeded Spartans (17-5) will face sixth-seeded Case (17-5) in the South semifinals on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Taunton High School. Both schools were sectional champions a year ago when Case played in Division 3.

Courtney Carroll smacked a two-out RBI single in the second inning and Carvalho pushed an off-field RBI single to right field in the seventh against Spellman's highly-touted ace, left-hander Courtney Zambello.

While the Spartans did strike out 11 times against the hard-throwing Zambello, they also got to her for nine hits and stranded nine runners

Stang had its trump card in the person of Carvalho. The senior captain allowed the Cardinals just four base runners — the hit, two walks, and an error.

Spellman mounted one serious threat, in the third inning with the score 1-0.

The error, a sacrifice bunt, a soft Lily Demers single, and a steal left runners at second and third with one out. Facing the second and third batters in the order, Carvalho struck out Emily Tuite and Bridget Walsh swinging on high pitches.

She finished with six strikeouts, including a game ender.

"I was confident with all my pitches," Carvalho said, "but basically my defense when they were making plays helped a lot."

Most conspicuous on defense was right fielder Addison Landry, who made three fine plays. She took care of outs Nos. 1 and 3 in the fourth inning with a running catch and then a drop-to-the-knees snare of a line drive. With one out in the fifth, she sprinted almost to the infield to make a sliding catch of a pop fly while somehow avoiding a collision with second baseman Madison Guarneri.

"She had my back," Carvalho said.

After being overmatched by Zambello in the first inning, Stang found the range the rest of the way.

"The toughest part for us was adjusting from what we saw yesterday (15-4 over Abington on Monday) to what we see today," Stang coach Dan Sylvia said. "There's no doubt there was a difference in velocity from the pitchers, plus a righty-lefty combination going back. Our kids adjusted well. We knew it was going to be tough."

Stang broke through in the second. Maddie Machado led by being hit by a pitch and landed on third with two outs via a Maranda Ferreira sacrifice and an Alexa Thomas ground out.

Carroll, who may lead the team in hard outs this season, next stung an 0-1 pitch to right field for the game-winning RBI.

"I know she's in the seventh spot, but she's deceptive in the seventh spot," Sylvia said. "She's taken quality swings and it finally paid its due for her."

Stang threatened in the fourth when a Ferreira (2-for-3) stroked a one-out single and was replaced by pinchrunner Audria Harrington.

A throwing error on a Thomas sacrifice bunt put runners at the corners, and Spellman's choice not to throw to first on a Carroll sac bunt loaded the bases as Harrington scrambled back safely into third just ahead of the charge of catcher Lydia DePina. With the plate uncovered and DePina turned away, Harrington started for home then turned back but not before DePina made a diving tag.

Zambello ended the threat with a K.

In the Stang seventh, Landry reached on a one-out error, Lindsey Florent (2-for-4) singled to center, and Nicole Vachon sacrificed and reached as Spellman again did not risk the throw to first.

Carvalho followed with her RBI hit to right.

In the last of the seventh, after a walk and a sacrifice, Carvalho made a nice high-reaching catch of a Liz Maher punch just over the circle. She then fanned Bridget Cooke to send the Spartans back to the South final four.

"All you ask for is an opportunity to go back to Taunton, defend your title," Sylvia said. "I know we've got a tough, tough road in front of us. We've got Case. They're the D3 South champs from last year. Moved up to D2 this year. That's going to be a tough game."

"During the season we played (Case) in a scrimmage and they kicked our butts, to say the least" Carvalho said. "So I'm proud to have a chance to come back and take over."

Top-seeded Bellingham (21-1) and fifth-seeded Dighton-Rehoboth (17-5) meet in the other semifinal, today (Wednesday) at 7 p.m. at Taunton.